More Bad News for SEIU

On Jan 4, 2018

Over the past few months, SEIU has had to deal with the fallout over allegations of sexual harassment against several leaders with SEIU and the Fight for $15 campaign. For those not familiar with the Fight for $15 campaign, it is an SEIU effort to increase the minimum wage that employers pay their workers and to unionize them; and SEIU has spent several years and tens of millions of dollars from its members on this campaign. Unfortunately for SEIU, although it has had some success at boosting the minimum wages in liberal cities and states, it has had much less success at unionizing fast food workers.

As if that were not bad enough, the United Media Guild recently reported that a majority of the Fight for $15 staffers from all across the country had signed union membership cards to join the staff union. The group, which numbers more than 50 staffers, is seeking better benefits from the SEIU. Fight for $15 staffers had been looking to unionize for quite some time, but SEIU had hypocritically opposed the effort. Although SEIU recognized the staff workers’ union, it is unclear exactly how many members the bargaining unit will have or when negotiations on a union contract will start between the United Media Guild and SEIU.

It will be interesting to see how SEIU responds to its staffers’ demands. Will it end the Fight for $15 campaign, or will the wealthy union claim poverty and only offer its employees miserly benefits? After all, SEIU does have a record of firing staffers who join a union or want to do so.